Every year, BG Verghese would unfailingly call me up, seeking names of women journalists who…
First, a disclosure: I am an unabashed MS Dhoni fan. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when I first met him, he warmly shook my hand and said, ‘there are only two journalists who I respect. You are one of them, the other is Prannoy Roy.’
For me, the year’s end invariably means Christmas, bringing its unique sense of renewal and joie de vivre. Turkey, plum cake and mulled wine on December 25 have been a tradition in the Sardesai household for years. We decorate our decades-old yet hardy Christmas tree, visit a neighbour for Xmas brunch, share our goodies and indulge the tastebuds.
Like most South Delhi colonies, Panchshila park where I live, is seeing rapid construction. The old leafy houses are being demolished and three, sometimes four storey buildings are being constructed. Every morning, I walk past these houses, watching young men (and a few women) lifting the stone and gravel, knocking in bricks, carrying the sand.
I have been to Peshawar once. I didn’t have a visa for the city but sneaked in because I was desperately keen to track the Taliban. The year was early 2001, just before 9/11 awakened the world to the horrors of global terror emanating from the Afpak region. I couldn’t quite get into the rugged wilds of the FATA territories but I did manage to meet a number of Taliban sympathisers in Peshawar
There are moments in life which touch the soul almost unknowingly. Over the weekend, I was in Mumbai for my book promotional tour. The venue was Crossword book store at Kemps Corner, a wonderful place for bibliophiles in the heart of South Mumbai. I spent an hour talking and taking questions on my book. It was hugely energising to sit amidst book lovers.
You return from the Kashmir valley with a sense of overwhelming melancholia: it is a beautiful but tortured land. What should have been the Switzerland of the sub-continent is a depressed place. The large army presence and the fear of the terrorist has created a universe where anger and resentment co-exist uneasily with traditional Kashmiri hospitality.
Prime time news television thrives on the idea of a daily enemy, someone who can be court-martialled every night and then pronounced guilty by the news anchor playing the double role of judge and prosecutor. Politicians are the staple accused, but in the last 18 months our netas have had competition from a cricket official. In news television’s imagination, N Srinivasan has come to exemplify the rot in the country’s number one sport and there have been loud calls for his removal from the cricket board.
